zraver

That study is just as flawed. How many people who have or expect to have a chronic condition will even try to get individual insurance? 133 million Americans have some sort of chronic condition. Not all of these are severe, but many are, and many more can mutate into something worse if untreated. looking only at a small segment of the population one already predisposed to self selection out of the control group is hardly the way to make wide ranging arguments about the health insurance industry in general.

The study also does not address the employer provided health insurance questions I posed. Unlike indivisual premiums where those presenting and asking for an offer of insurance and can be screened, group plans offer little in the way of screening so premiums are inflated to cover expected losses + other operating expenses + profit. here adverse selection is very much in play on both ends in the plans being picked and the premiums being offered.

1.There are two different times there, later in life and over the course of a life time.

2. The pressure of life in America is not to save, but to consume.

Now lets assume that in general costs for health care start going up at 50. So a male worker has to save $100 from 18-50- 32 years x 12 months= $260 a month. That is in line with the average in the study you presented, but like I said that study is flawed in its over-breadth.

Another flaw with saving is a woman worker has less time because her costs go up quicker because of the cost of child birth. So she losses what she had saved and has to start over after her non-health and health related costs just went up due to the birth of a child. She will also now be making less since child care and rearing is time exhaustive. Either she does without, or she shifts the burden to the man(father) if he is part of the family structure so the real costs he is bearing go up. Your study had an average cost of $6000 a year for a screened healthy family. A normal family with a mix of healthy and unhealthy individuals can likely look forward to higher premiums. $6000 a year is nearly 1/7 the Average American's pre-tax pay.

So what if your savings family has an autistic child, early onset cancer or some other disaster. Now that they've burned through their 100K, who is going to insure them and at what rates its a losing proposition. A single payer system has the benefit of everyone paying in, and no one suddenly being left out. It also encourages health management by getting people in to see their doctors before the chronic conditions become serious and thus expensive. Instead of John Doe showing up for a triple bypass on your buck because after his heart attack his insurance company cut him loose, We can get him into the doctors years earlier and get him on blood pressure and cholesterol meds.

nationalized health care means there is no reason to avoid the doctor so check ups and maintenance can be stressed. America outspends everyone else on health care but we don't have universal coverage and those who do have coverage don't get the best care. The system is broken, not by socialism, but by capitalism. Health care is a social good and belongs in the realm of the government. In the free market the drive to maximize profits means exclusion, and money over people. In the end as our health care costs prove this only increases the costs, prevents early detection and maintence and shifts the most costly onto the shoulders of the tax payer, unless of course we want to let people die.